


A Different Life

by DeathRose



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Drama, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-27
Updated: 2016-01-27
Packaged: 2018-05-16 16:05:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5831917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeathRose/pseuds/DeathRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tom lives a very different life. AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Different Life

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Harry Potter. It belongs to JK Rowling.

title: A Different Life  
by: The Rose in Death's Garden (DeathRose)  
written for: The HPFC Monthly One-Shot Exchange (January 2016)  
prompt: Tom/Ginny, angst, prostitute/client!AU  
pairing: Tom Riddle Jr/Ginny Weasley

* * *

Tom Marvolo Riddle knew nothing about his father other than that his name had also been Tom Riddle (although with a different or no middle name since the younger Tom's middle name was taken from his maternal grandfather) and that his mother had loved him very much. Tom had no memories of the man who had sired him and very few memories of his mother.

Merope had not been a pretty woman, her son knew, but his memories of his early childhood were fuzzy and he remembered her not by her sallow skin and stringy hair but by her warmth and her soft voice hissing the words of a human lullaby to him in Parseltongue. He remembered how happy she'd been when he showed signs of having magic other than being able to understand the snake language.

Tom's childhood had not been happy after his mother's death when he was sent to a Muggle orphanage. But he had known he would be fine because he had his magic to protect him and he knew he would get his Hogwarts letter once he turned eleven and then he would go to school and from then on he would be part of the wizarding world once more.

Unfortunately for him, the wizarding world was much more dangerous than he had anticipated. In his third year at Hogwarts, Tom's magical core was irreparably damaged when he was mauled by an Acromantula. If the creature had been full-grown at the time, he would not have survived the attack.

 _Death_ , he thought, _would have been kinder._

No longer qualified to be there, he was forced to leave Hogwarts. He refused to go back to the Muggle world again. Instead he lived as sneak-thief in Knockturn Alley for several years. One he was of age he found that the brothels were only too eager to hire such a handsome young man. His scars from the Acromantula attack and the fact that his magic was crippled were turn-offs for some customers and Tom found himself barely scraping by.

As the years rolled on and on, Tom continued to work at the brothel. By the time he was seventy-five years old he began to wonder what the point was. What was life worth if you spent every day just continuing your existence in a monotonous cycle? What would his life have been like if he hadn't lost his magic back then? What was the point of life without magic of his own when magic was all around him?

Tom was nearly a hundred years old and starting to wonder whether Death was laughing as it continued to not come for him. He was still reasonably healthy and mobile and his hair was still mostly gray and with only a little bit of white to it.

That was the year that he was first hired by a wiry yet muscular young woman with red hair who was "just passing through with my Quidditch team" and "could use a break but don't have the time or patience for time for all of that 'boyfriend' nonsense" and "if you'd grown up with six brothers you'd understand".

She was so vibrant and vital, and for the first time since back when he was a child, he felt like he was alive not merely existing. And when she left, for the first in eighty years he longed to rejoin the world beyond his bedroom door.


End file.
